Chikka Corporate

Chikka expands patent portfolio for text apps

April 14, 2009

Chikka, creators of the popular Internet gateway to texting mobile phones announced it has expanded its portfolio of patents around SMS-based messaging applications Today, it has eleven patent filings, with 34 applications granted and over 40 pending; all mobile communications related and covering 24 countries.

Among the technologies Chikka patented is “speed suffixing” applied heavily by the company’s flagship service, Chikka Text Messenger. It is observed when one sends or receives Chikka messages that a unique number series, for example a phone number, is “suffixed” to the operator short code. The “speed suffixing” patent in fact relates to the use of a system-generated suffix that serves to identify a particular session, in the case above, messaging between two Chikka users.

“Chikka Text Messenger, the unique Internet to mobile text service, has been downloaded on millions of computers worldwide. We attribute Chikka’s wide adoption to the patented technologies themselves that make Chikka very easy and highly intuitive to use by both our online and mobile users,” said Chito Bustamante, Chikka chief executive officer.

Through suffixing, mobile users easily reply to Chikka text messages like any other regular SMS. There are no extra steps or additional keywords to input and send to an access code.

Another feature that Chikka patented, allows users to enter a mobile number as a PC log-in ID. The result is a unified mobile and instant messaging (IM) account that also allows one to conveniently receive and reply to IM messages as SMS, when away from a PC. The Unified Account is among the earliest patents granted by the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore. Subsequent patents have also been acquired from other countries signatory to the Patent Cooperation Treaty.

“Chikka since time has invested in building a patent portfolio around those methods and processes that are: one, deemed innovative; and two, pose huge commercial potential. Indeed, Chikka which we launched in 2001 is one of the first, if not the first, commercially successful integration of web and mobile technologies,” added Bustamante.

Audrey and Yu Sarn, Singapore-based counsel for intellectual property of Chikka says that by global standards, the company and its affiliates have assembled one of the most impressive cluster of patents to protect its messaging-based applications.

Providing various wireless applications to over 30 mobile operators in seventeen countries including the US, UK, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and India, Chikka has also diversified; developing applications for mobile content, commerce, and corporate solutions. According to the company, Chikka Messenger is probably the most widely-used and viewed Internet and mobile-based communications tool by Filipinos worldwide.